Jake On Captain Trips
by Jhomeboy
Summary: A young boy wanders the streets of New York in spite of the Captain Trips epidemic of "The Stand." Rated PG-13 for ONE word


Disclaimer: I don't own the Stand or any other Stephen King story…yet. This is just a small story during the superflu, Captain Trips, tube neck, Blue Virus, etc, etc, etc as a young boy in New York, immune to this virus, looks for you parents, awaiting his destiny.

Jake Sasso dropped his Lego™ set. Shattering, the toy lay in the street in exactly 633 pieces. Rebuilding, which can be a bitch seeing as he no longer possessed the instructions, was the least of Jake's worries as the Sickos, as Jake called them, came walking up the street again.

Not too many people were around anymore. As a lightly retarded man by the name of Tom Cullen would exclaim fifteen hundred miles away a week later, all the people seemed to have just gotten up and moved away. Of course, there were still people around, like the Monster Caller, as one man he met in the park called him. The Monster Caller died, one of Mom's cooking utensils that Jake wasn't supposed to touch (lest he be grounded till his Dad's age) sticking out of his back. The nice man he had talked to was regarded him while a really old and, in Jake's view, nasty woman hung on his arm. 

Also, there was the gang Jake called the Sickos. Not because they were gross (well, Jake also felt like throwing up his breakfast of Wonder Bread and Cheerios he prepared himself upon the sight of them) but because they were all hacking and sneezing whenever they came up 47th street to scare Jake. Every time they came back there were always fewer and fewer of the Sickos. Jake guessed they must be lonely too and moved away, maybe to California or Detroit or wherever people liked to live. 

The Sickos would always chase away Jake. Jake would always, with a cool air of confidence, because he was eight and an eight year old can run like the wind, would always proclaim that it was _his _city because he was the only one that hadn't moved away yet besides the Sickos. The streets were always jammed with the silent cars. Jake peered into one and got to glimpse at a real life mummy, and for once had an adult thought in his life: I am all alone here. The mummy wasn't wrapped neatly in bandages you could purchase at the corner 7-Eleven first aid center, but rather a dried up corpse that had been caught behind the overbaked heat of the car for too long. His dog, in the passenger seat, had also been mummified by the heat, and had apparently chewed off a paw in a fit of hunger. He had been trapped in there for a week or two and had finally gotten too hungry. Jake simply stared into the window of death, and was only drawn away when the sweet cinnamon smell hit his nose. He ran and ran and didn't stop until he was safe in Central Park.

He realized that yes he was all alone. His parents were mummies now too, entombed in their apartment back on the intersection of 102 and 88. They had died in each others hands. Jake had left after they had died, had left and was now living in the streets. He wandered eventually into the FAO Schwartz store downtown, where he stole a Lego set. He didn't know it was wrong, for eight year olds can't determine morality from being a kid. The door had already been open, and the electricity was still, miraculously, running. He was in long enough to grab a nice Lego set he liked and then left. When the lights finally went out, he spent a lonely night on the Skating Rink in Central Park. His only other roomie on the rink was one of the men that his mother called a "hoe-boe," which meant that no matter how much they asked, Jake couldn't give them money. When Jake awoke the next morning, his roomate was dead. Jake had cried and ran as fast as he could away.

Jake stood as the dwindled Sickos approached him. There were only three now, and they were mighty feverish. Jake could even see that. The leader, the one he called Sickie I, sneezed, spat up a rather startling and exaggerated amount of phlegm onto the street. There as nobody left to yell at him, so he continued on toward Jake. 

"Kid, how many times do I have to tell you to leave?" shouted Sickie. His goons on his side sneezed in unison that, under other circumstances, would have been quiet funny. 

"I don't wanna leave! This is _my_ city! It's mine! Everybody moved away and left it to me!" 

Sickie smiled his toothy smile. Phlegm ghooshed out of the missing tooth on the top. "Kid, this ain't your town. This is our town! And to prove it, I'm getting` rid of you." 

Before Jake could ask Sickie to enlighten him, Sickie pulled out his treasured weapon: a Ruger pistol. Jake gasped as the first slashed through his armpit, barely a scrape. The report was loud in his ears and rang in the silent canyon of skyscrapers. The second blow was to the chest. Jake uttered a short choking chortle and fell to the littered asphalt. 

As Sickie walked over, and before he emptied the last two shells that would tear of Jake's head and end his life, he had his second and last adult thought: 

I'm all alone…and I'm as good as dead. 


End file.
